Longest-serving health secretary Jeremy Hunt completes five years in post

By Nick Bostock on the
5 September 2017

Jeremy Hunt this week completed five years as health secretary. GPonline looks back at half a decade that has seen MPIG scrapped, the start of revalidation and CQC inspections, junior doctor strikes and the emergence of a full-blown GP crisis.

Only two people have held equivalent posts for longer since the NHS began, either as health minister - a role that existed from 1919 to 1968 - or as secretary of state for health and social services when the two were combined between 1968 and 1988.

Moving past the five-year milestone leaves Mr Hunt less than six months from achieving a longer spell as the top government health minister than Aneurin Bevan - the chief architect of the NHS.

Looking back at Jeremy Hunt's record

GP contract

Mr Hunt took over from former health secretary Andrew Lansley in September 2012 after his predecessor faced growing criticism as the architect of an NHS reform programme described by then health service chief executive Sir David Nicholson as 'so big you can see it from outer space'.

Despite initial hopes that a change of leadership at the DH would improve relations with the profession, within months talks collapsed over a new GP contract for 2013/14, and the government pushed ahead with imposing a deal that would phase out MPIG by 2021 and equalise PMS and GMS funding. GP leaders said the move left the profession facing the 'biggest cuts in years'.

Mr Hunt followed up by imposing a 0.28% overall rise in GP contract funding for 2014/15 - condemned by GP leaders as a 'kick in the teeth'. In that same year Mr Hunt spelled out his vision to scrap QOF entirely - a move yet to be completed, despite the steady shift of funding into the core contract in recent years.

Strikes

In 2016 the crisis facing the health service came to a head with the first strikes by junior doctors in 40 years, largely over concerns that plans for a seven-day NHS and changes to rotas would undermine patient safety.

GPs could yet be heading for industrial action in the coming months after a ballot of the profession earlier this year to gauge practices' willingness collectively to close their patient lists in protest over unmanageable workload. Polling by GPonline suggested the vote could be on a knife-edge.

What next for Jeremy Hunt?

Despite profound problems facing the NHS and warnings from GP leaders that the next winter crisis looks set to be far worse than the last, Mr Hunt looks odds-on to surpass Bevan's period in office.

What lies around that corner for general practice will be determined by how prepared the government and its health secretary are to deliver the 11% share of NHS funding GP leaders believe is needed for the profession to begin to operate on all cylinders. Mr Hunt's ability to find that money urgently and successfully to oversee reforms that can turn around the NHS crisis will determine whether he can reverse what to date has been a long but unpopular stay at Richmond House.